‘This kind of sick feeling started coming out’: Raygun details post-Olympics hate

Told yers.

As illustrated by her one-on-one unpaid interview on The Project on Wednesday evening, Rachael “Raygun” Gunn is not the shameless grifter her myriad critics tried to make her out to be.

Australian Olympic break dancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn on The Project on Wednesday night.Credit: Network Ten

Far from someone who had been cruelly portrayed as a brazen banshee intent on milking her 15 minutes on an international stage she had no right to be on in the first place, she came across as an immensely likeable woman.

She’s still stunned by the whole saga and was keen to set the record straight.

“Raygun”, as you’ll recall, burst into international prominence last month through a joyous if less than truly athletic performance at the Paris Olympics in the new sport of breakdancing, all while dressed in an Australian tracksuit.

Rower Angus Widdicombe carries Raygun at the closing ceremony.Credit: X/Twitter

In response, while most of our mob – including the prime minister – rejoiced in her fabulous insouciance and preparedness to have a go ya mug, she was also the victim of a cruel pile-on like few have experienced. Nasty narks mercilessly mocked her for days on end.

In blistering columns, withering social media posts and even mass petitions, she was accused of everything from having gerrymandered her selection, to wasting taxpayers’ money to having single-handedly killed off an entire sport from Olympic representation. The attacks were excoriating, like few Australian sportspeople have experienced.

So, The Project host Waleed Aly’s first question was typically caring, and to the point: “How are you doing?”

“It’s been a pretty wild ride,” she replied. “I definitely have my ups and downs, my good and bad days... It definitely has been tough at times. I got some mental health support pretty quickly, and I also went off social media... I didn’t understand the scale of it. I did preview some comments, and I was like, ‘Oh no’, and this kind of sick feeling started coming out.”

Things like finding herself the subject of a Jimmy Fallon skit – which she still hasn’t seen – gave her an unworldly feeling.

“I’m still in the process of trying to describe how I feel. It feels like a weird dream I’ve been having that I’m going to wake up from.”

As for being on the bottom of a mass pile-on. What was that like?

“It was really sad how much hate it did evoke. A lot of the responses, though, are due to people not being very familiar with breaking and the diversity of approaches in breaking.”

Rachael Gunn, known as B-Girl Raygun, during her performance at La Concorde.Credit: nna\KCampbell

On that specific subject, she explained how breakdancing has two basic strands – of the athletic performers and the more artistic ones – and therefore the sheer unfairness of much of the most bitter criticism.

“There’s been a portion of very, angry, and, you know, awful responses not only attacking me but attacking my husband, attacking my crew, attacking the breaking and street dance community in Australia... The energy and vitriol that people had was pretty alarming.”

Watch her and weep. For most of the nastiness was based on nonsense, and she was able to blow away the most damaging of the conspiracy theories, including the one that she and her husband had contrived her selection by setting up their own breakdancing ruling body.

Waleed: “How did you qualify for the Paris Olympic Games?”

‘It feels like a weird dream I’ve been having that I’m going to wake up from.’

Raygun on The Project

Raygun: “I won the Oceania championship.”

There were nine judges, and as she made clear, she knew none of them.

Still...

“As soon as I qualified, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. What have I done?’ Because I knew that I was going to get beaten, and I knew that people were not going to understand my style and what I was going to do.” But she went ahead anyway.

The Channel Ten host did not spare her some of the more trenchant criticism which did include identities from Australia’s breakdancing community, including a breaker called Spice, whose grab ran on The Project: “I feel like it’s just pushed our scene in Australia into the Dark Ages. It made a mockery of the Australian scene and I think that’s why a lot of us are hurting.”

Over to you, Raygun?

“It is really sad to hear those criticisms,” she replied. “I am very sorry for, you know, the backlash that the community has experienced, but I can’t control how people react... In the last year, I have trained my hardest. I have trained so hard. Learning power moves in your mid-30s is not easy. Let’s just say that. So I have really, you know, put my body through it, put my mind through it. So, you know, but if that’s not good enough for someone. What can I say?”

Most wonderfully though, she spoke movingly about how when she was under the gun, the mighty Australian Olympic team got around her, fully supporting her for the closing ceremony, applauding her, putting her on their shoulders, letting her know she was loved.

“It was just crazy. Like, I was feeling pretty anxious that day. You know, it was all kind of affecting me a bit more and was weighing on me a bit more, and I wasn’t sure if I was even going to go to the closing ceremony, and it was just so nice to have the support of, of all the other Olympians there.

“They understood, you know, that I went out there and I gave it my all, and it wasn’t just like we support you. It was like, you’re a legend. Let’s have fun. You know, let’s celebrate. And, and then someone was like do the kangaroo, and so we were doing it. I never thought that would happen. Like oh my gosh, totally wild. And the Australians were just all cheering and that was just like, so like, it so warmed my heart. I just will be forever grateful for those moments.”

Bravo, Raygun.

Australian. Legend.

You did you, and you were fabulous.

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